Diandra Toyos, a mother of three, shared a terrifying experience she had at an IKEA store in Southern California

Like many concerned mothers, she has seen the Facebook posts similar to the very one she eventually wrote herself, thinking that she would never find herself in such a situation. Once it happened, she felt an urgency to share exactly what happened and why it led her to believe her children were in imminent danger. She hopes that her post may help other mothers be more prepared and alert.

“I recently read a post written by a mother I didn’t know, that went viral. She described an event that happened to her while she was at Target. She and her children were targeted by human traffickers. She talked about how when she reported the incident after the fact, she was told that this was a very common way they worked.

I read things like that, and I always think “wow, that’s so scary… I need to be careful”. But I also always think ‘that could never happen to me.’ But you guys, it did.

A few days ago, my mom and I took the kids (I have 3 kids. A daughter who is 4, and two sons, 1.5 years and 7 weeks) to IKEA. We enjoy going and it’s always nice to get the kids out of the house! We went specifically to look at couches. We were in the couch section and the kids were enjoying climbing on each couch and trying them out. My daughter was trying to convince us which couch we should get. My older son was happily walking from couch to couch, flopping himself on each one. My baby boy was snuggled into the sling, sound asleep. After a few minutes, I noticed a well dressed, middle aged man circling the area, getting closer to me and the kids. At one point he came right up to me and the boys, and instinctively I put myself between he and my mobile son.Continue to next page below…